The Delilah Complex by MJ Rose

point of why they were in my office. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. Men have left, but of their own volition. A few guys have gotten sick, but Christ, no one has died. What do we do? How do we cope with this?” she asked again, her voice tight and agitated.
    Now that someone had exposed the problem, they all spoke at once, and I had to stop them and explain that they needed to go one at a time.
    “A lot of us knew Philip really well. He’d been with the society for the past eight years.” Davina said.
    “We’ve all been with him, haven’t we?” Martha asked, looking around the room.
    Everyone nodded.
    “We don’t know what to do,” Anne said. Her voice was musical and studied. I recognized its cadence and wondered if she was an actress.
    Louise, who also wore sunglasses that covered more than a third of her face, and who had a faint Boston accent, said, “We can’t talk about this with anyone outside of the society. It’s driving us crazy. We don’t know what to tell our friends or families about our melancholy. I burst into tears at the office this morning and my boss, whom I am incredibly close to, asked me what was wrong. I couldn’t tell her. What am I supposed to do with all this grief?”
    Around the room, with nods or murmurs, they all acknowledged that this was what they wanted me to help them with.
    “There’s something else,” Ellen said. She looked angry, and tucked her hair behind her ears as if she was getting ready for a fight. I noticed the large ruby studs in her earlobes. “From the story in the paper, it doesn’t sound like the police have any leads. What if his death has some connection to the society? What if one of us has something to do with it?”
    “Don’t you see? Any one of us could be involved with his murder,” Martha whispered. “What if it’s because he’s part of the society that Philip’s dead?”

Fifteen

    O fficers Tana Butler and Steve Fisher sat in an unmarked car parked on East Sixty-fifth Street between Madison and Park Avenues, across the street and four doors down from a turn-of-the-century limestone building.
    “You wouldn’t think to look at it that it’s a sex clinic,” Fisher said.
    For the first time, Butler paid attention to the building’s architecture: the elegant facade and decorative wroughtiron door.
    “I guess not.”
    “And if you didn’t know, nothing about the name on that nice little brass plaque would give it away. The Butterfield Institute could be anything, you know? A high-level think tank. An art school.”
    Butler looked at her watch. They’d been sitting in the car since 6:45 p.m. and it was almost eight. “You sure there’s no back door to this place?”
    “Nope.”
    “Well this doesn’t make sense. She’s been in there for more than an hour. And why was she wearing a wig?”
    “Maybe she’s doing some undercover investigation withone of the therapists. Pretending to be a patient instead of a reporter. Makes sense. The case has a sexual component. Why wouldn’t she do some follow-up with a sex therapist?”
    “I guess. But how do you explain all the other women who went in there along with her?”
    “It is a clinic, Tana. I’d bet most people go after work. Or maybe there’s some group thing going and they all wound up going in at the same time.”
    Butler’s cell phone rang. It was Jordain, and she gave him an update on where they were, how long they’d been there, and the odd detail of Betsy Young wearing the wig.
    When she got off the phone, she filled Fisher in on Jordain’s call. While they talked, they watched the Butterfield’s front door. A young couple came out; the woman looked visibly upset.
    “Have you ever been to a therapist?” Butler asked.
    Fisher shook his head. “You?”
    “For a few weeks after I—” She broke off. The door to the institute had opened again and Young walked out. She turned left, in the opposite direction of the car, and started walking toward Park